


The Princess and the Pea

by Philomytha



Category: Vorkosigan Saga - Lois McMaster Bujold
Genre: Cuddling, M/M, Outtakes, forced to share a bed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-05-11
Updated: 2011-05-11
Packaged: 2017-10-19 06:23:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 682
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/197915
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Philomytha/pseuds/Philomytha
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A slashy outtake from <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/135363">Aral Vorkosigan's Dog</a>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Princess and the Pea

**Author's Note:**

> Every so often as I was writing AVD, I would find myself sticking in slashy scenes, and then remembering that I was writing a gen fic and taking them out again. This is one, which takes place somewhere around chapter five or six.

There had been a mix-up about the fast courier. It had a small passenger cabin, as well as the dorm for the crew, but the cabin only held a single bunk. Since neither Vorkosigan nor Illyan were about to demand that the people actually doing the work give up their bunks for the passengers, Illyan had given a philosophical shrug and stretched out on the floor.

Normally, he could sleep anywhere, but tonight the hardness of the floor made his shoulders and hips ache, the chill soaked into his bones even with the generous half of the blankets Vorkosigan had tossed him, and he couldn't get comfortable enough to sleep. He lay perfectly still anyway, as discipline, listening to Vorkosigan's breathing turn even and slow. When he was sure Vorkosigan was asleep, he began to try and get comfortable, but no matter where he moved, he still ached. The bruises and strains he had from earlier weren't helping, either.

He got up and stretched, then tried to fold the blankets to make himself more comfortable. It didn't help, and now he was cold too, because they were running the heating low here. He tried to find a way to curl around himself so that the smallest possible area of his body was touching the metal floor, but nothing seemed to work.

"For fuck's sake," Vorkosigan said out of the darkness. "Are you an Imperial officer or a damned princess?"

Illyan started, mortification heating his face. He'd stopped paying attention to Vorkosigan. He cast back on his chip and realised Vorkosigan had been awake and listening to him fidget for the past ten minutes.

"My apologies, sir," he said stiffly.

The silence as he lay utterly motionless lasted thirty extraordinarily long seconds--could his chip's clock be losing its accuracy?--and then Vorkosigan said, "Oh, don't be an idiot. Come here, Lieutenant. There's room."

Illyan swallowed. "I'm fine, sir."

"You're obviously not, and I spent a good hour chucking you around in the gym. Come here and bring those blankets; they don't seem to believe in heating on this ship."

Matching Vorkosigan's lighter tone, Illyan retorted, "I seem to recall a fair bit of that chucking around going the other way, sir."

"Ha. True. But neither of us is going to get any sleep with you bouncing around like a bedbug." Vorkosigan hesitated a moment. "I don't know what you've read in my file, but I'm not going to molest you in your sleep, if that's what you're worried about." Beneath the determinedly light tone, Illyan detected a note of familiar hurt, of a man who's known for a long time that his inclinations are different from everyone else's and that this makes people treat him differently.

Denying that he had been worrying about that--and he certainly hadn't--would only make matters worse. Instead, Illyan stood up again, wincing, collected up the blankets and went to the bunk. "Move over, then."

The tension in the cabin seemed to vanish. Vorkosigan shifted sideways, and Illyan lay down, forcing himself not to avoid touching Vorkosigan. Not that it would have been easy to avoid it; the bunk wasn't huge. It was, however, wide enough for two, so long as they didn't mind being very close together. And it was soft, beautifully soft, and warm from Vorkosigan's body heat, and Illyan didn't quite manage to stop himself letting out a contented sigh. He heard the ghost of a laugh from Vorkosigan.

"Go to sleep," Vorkosigan instructed, and somehow everything he said sounded like an order, even when Illyan had Vorkosigan's elbow poking him slightly. "And keep your feet to yourself, they're freezing."

And Vorkosigan's were warm. It was a strange thing to know about the man you were spying on. Vorkosigan was a very warm person, though, in every way. And Illyan knew he wasn't. He couldn't be. Cold analysis was his avowal, and cool distance, and icy nerves.

Far more comfortable than he had imagined being on a fast courier, Illyan allowed himself to relax and drift off to sleep, soaking in Vorkosigan's warmth.


End file.
